POETRY FRIDAY: The Spirit of the West by my great-grandmother, Clara Calhoun

Last week, after posting my grandfather's poem, I wrote that I am proud to come from a long line of poets. To back that up, this week I am sharing a poem by his mother, my pioneer great-grandmother Clara Boyd Calhoun!

THE SPIRIT OF THE WEST

Come, come ye hardy pioneers,
And listen to this song
As down the swiftly rolling years
Its cadence floats along.
The East is flocking to our shores--
With customs new and strange
The iron horse with magic powers
Is tramping out our range.
Electric lights with wired beams
Our moonlights are subduing--
Horseless cars like flitting dreams
Their reckless way pursuing.
The canyons roar! but no cascade
Makes echoing booms and quivers--
The Eastern hand with science's aid
Would desecrate our rivers.
The Western Spirit sees with dread
This march upon our borders;
She sadly bows her once proud head
To time's determined orders.
Her once proud head! Begone the thought
Aye! Proud, for evermore--
No greener laurels ere were brought
To crown a fame more pure.
Her mountains high, her valleys broad,
Her forests deep and grand,
She gives to all--like Nature's God
And with a lavish hand.
She bids them come--South, East, and North
In accents sad, but loving,
Each soul she reckons by her worth
Her kindly welcome proving.
And yet her heart in sorrow yearns--
Her smile is clouded o'er
As when her mood in sadness turns,
To days that are no more.
Her gallant cowboys--gone for aye,
Her wildings of the woods
Her softly brooding melody
From her vast solitudes.
For still we know when all is told
She lover her first born best;
Come pioneers and rally round
The Spirit of the West.


Clara Virginia Boyd Calhoun
Blue Gulch, Idaho
1856-1919